Putting a local face on the fight against cancer

No one at the Vin de Set restaurant needed a reminder Thursday evening that cancer is all around us.

You could hear and feel it in the voices at the Pedal the Cause event where top fundraisers for one of this town’s newest charity causes mingled with doctors from Siteman Cancer Center and Children’s Hospital, two of Pedal’s beneficiaries.

Many of the fundraiser’s riders were cancer survivors themselves — like Teri Griege, a competitive athlete who was diagnosed with colon and liver cancer in 2009. She personally raised more than $50,000 for last fall’s Pedal the Cause ride then headed to Hawaii to enter an Ironman Triathlon. And Brian Wehner, who learned in 2008 that he had a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He’s been cancer free for more than three years and organized Bartlett’s Riders, named after Dr. Nancy Bartlett, the oncologist at the Siteman Cancer Center who he credits with saving his life. Bartlett’s Riders raised nearly $35,000 for Pedal.

What’s amazing is how fast Pedal the Cause — just entering its third year — has climbed the local fund-raising and bicycling circuit. Last fall’s event raised $1.3 million from 1,300 riders.

Maybe it’s the ride itself, which weaves its way from downtown St. Louis to Chesterfield the first Sunday in October‚ with routes covering 25, 50 and 75 miles. Maybe it’s because all the money raised goes for cancer research here in our own backyard. Maybe it’s because the fight against cancer is so personal.

Whatever the reason, Pedal is making an impressive showing, considering it comes three weeks after the region’s most popular charity bicycling event, the long-runing Gateway MS 150, a two-day event which drew 3,200 riders last September and raised more than $2.16 million.

I’m considered a top fund-raiser for both events with the Gateway MS 150 naming me one of its “Top 150” fundraisers for a few years, and my first Pedal the Cause last fall pushed me into its “Yellow Jersey” class as one of its leading fundraisers. Both events are worthy causes. And, as someone being treated at Siteman for cancer, I take their work very personally.

Some years ago, the Gateway MS 150 grew so popular, the organizers moved the two-day event to Columbia, Mo.

Pedal the Cause leaders are keeping the event in St. Louis. But founder Bill Koman and Executive Director Jay Indovino have plans to get much bigger. They’ve modeled Pedal after a 30-year-old cycling event in Boston, Pan Mass Challenge, which raises more than $30 million a year.

This week, Pedal the Cause announced 12 research projects at the Siteman Cancer Center and St. Louis Children's Hospital that are being funded by the $1.3million that was raised in 2011.